Archive | May, 2015

A number of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa women, who turned up at polling stations to exercise their right to vote during the local body elections on Saturday, seemed to lack knowledge of the polling process.

Ironically, ill-trained polling staff was no help.

In some parts of the province, most women didnât step out due to conservative customs and even those, who came out, found ballot paper to be complicated.

Some went home without casting vote due to mismanagement and violence.

Intrusion of men into the womenâ��s polling stations too was a hurdle to the polling.

Talking to some women shortly after they cast vote revealed that they didn’t fill ballot paper properly as they’re not familiar with a ballot paper having many symbols.

The situation turned worst where there was no queue and polling staff was insufficient and ill-trained.

The polling at such polling stations was slow stressing out voters waiting for their turn under the sun.

A visit to some polling stations in Peshawar showed that ‘shuttlecock’ burqa-clad women, who looked exhausted in the hot weather, didn�t understand the ‘complicated’ ballot paper.

The problems of this nature were seen more in rural areas.

The worst kind of indiscipline was observed at the women’s polling stations, where women did not stand in queues.

There were concerns ahead of local body elections that women might not vote but they did come out though their turnout was not impressive.

Women rights groups, which had complained about the barring of women from voting, also kept a close watch on the situation and identified some areas, where women didn’t vote.

“In Urmar Payan area, women were turned away from polling stations. Women did not vote in Landi Bala, Hajiabad and many such localities,” said Qamar Naseem of NGO Blue Veins, which had sent observers to polling stations in urban and rural areas of Peshawar.

He said men were seen moving about freely in some women’s polling stations.

In Nasapa area, a woman was injured with a bullet created panic among women waiting for their turn to cast vote.

In Tehkaalbala area, a polling station didn’t open until 3pm.

Qamar Naseem said women did not vote in Bahadarkalay, Achar kallay, Landi Bala and Landi Payan areas due to verbal deals among local elders about not to allow women to cast vote.

It said after its regional and district teams stepped in, women did cast vote in areas like Heroshah (Malakand), Balu (Nowshera), Charma village, Gawliarai and Roringhar union councils (Swat), Ghari Usmanikhel and Dargai union councils (Malakand), where elders had already slapped a â�ban’ on the women’s right to vote.

“In Janikhel area of Bannu, armed men stopped women from casting vote,” said an observer.

Saira Bano, who heads Shirkatgah in Peshawar, said combined polling stations for men and women in Mayar, Gosam, Khazana, Kotky and Tor Qila areas in Lower Dir district discouraged many women to step out for voting.

She said a small number of women voters turned up at polling stations.

Saira said neither women in such areas knew how to poll vote correctly nor did the polling staff facilitate them at polling stations.

Meanwhile, the information gathered from across the province revealed that the turnout of women voters was very low in some districts, while women did not vote in many parts of Upper and Lower Dir, and Battagram.

Women didn’t cast vote at many polling stations in the highly-conservative Torghar district.

“I am not sure about the number of women polling stations, where polling has not taken place. However, the number may be less than 20 per cent of the total polling stations,” said Tahir Hassan, the district election commissioner of Torghar.

He expressed ignorance when asked about the reported agreements either among candidates or between candidates and local communities about ‘ban’ on women voters.

In the far-flung Battagram district, too, women voters didn’t take part in the elections.

A young resident of Orangi Town on Saturday became the sixth victim of the deadly Naegleria fowleri, commonly known as the ‘brain-eating’ amoeba, this year in Sindh, officials said.

Mohammad Muallim, 22, who had been under treatment at the Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) for the past two days, was the fifth patient to have died from the disease in May, the officials added.

The officials also confirmed to Dawn the presence of another young patient suffering from the disease in a government health facility.

The lethal amoeba, which survives on the bacteria in warm waters and enters the human brain through nasal cavity and eats up its tissues, could only be eliminated through proper chlorination or boiling of water.

The officials said that Muallim, who resided in Orangi Town’s MPR Colony, had been brought to the CHK two days ago in a critical condition and admitted to the medical intensive care unit.

He died at the hospital after falling into a coma on Saturday, they said.

“The patient had a history of three days of severe headache, nausea and irritability,” said Karachi health director Dr Zafar Ejaz while speaking to Dawn.

The health officials said the patient was initially treated at some private health facilities for malaria and then for meningitis and finally the family shifted him to the CHK when his condition deteriorated.

“He was at the ICU where his condition never improved and doctors pronounced him dead today,” said Dr Ejaz.

Before him, four cases were reported from Karachi — a teenage girl, a middle-aged woman, a 37-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy — and all of them died.

The only patient who had contracted the disease from an area out of Karachi was a 40-year-old man from Thatta.

The appalling rise in the frequency of deaths because of the deadly disease has exposed the authorities� claims of taking adequate measures to curb the horrors of the germ, which has killed 29 people in the last three years with 14 deaths recorded just last year.

Water chlorination

A focal group constituted by the health department to monitor chlorination of water supplied to Karachi has collected and examined water samples from across the city.

Of the 216 samples it collected and tested around 55 per cent was found with chlorination less than the desired levels.

The situation has worsened with the passage of time, as the examination of water samples collected last year had showed that a bit less than half of the city neighbourhoods were being supplied with water having insufficient chlorine or no chlorination at all.

The authorities claim of investing heavily in public awareness campaigns failed to impress anyone as the pamphlets might have changed hands in public places but none of them was found pasted in hospitals, mosques, swimming pools or other public places where people could contract the disease through the use of unsafe and poorly chlorinated water.

The officials said the germ could potentially approach the victim’s brain through nasal cavity during ablution at home or in mosques where water supplies were not safely chlorinated.

“For rinsing nose during ablution, one needs to use chlorinated or boiled water,” said a senior official.

The authorities said they had asked health officers to visit mosques in their respective areas, check chlorine level in their water reservoirs and ensure that it was free from algae, which is a carrier of Naegleria.

They added the food inspectors of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and Karachi Water and Sewerage Board officials had been asked to regularly take water samples from mosque tanks to ensure that the water being supplied there was duly chlorinated.

A focal group for the purpose has recently been formed by the provincial government.

Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis is defined in medical literature as a rare but typically fatal infection caused by Naegleria fowleri, an amoeba found in rivers, lakes, springs, drinking water networks and poorly chlorinated swimming pools.

The illness attacks a healthy person, three to seven days after exposure to contaminated water with symptoms of headache and slight fever, in some cases associated with sore throat and rhinitis (commonly called stuffy nose).

A 34-year-old Singaporean man was shot dead by police and two others were arrested in an incident near the Shangri-La Hotel where a high-level security summit was taking part.

The incident happened at 4.36 am on Sunday, said the police. The two men arrested, also Singaporeans, are 26 and 31 years old respectively.

The three men in a Singapore-registered red Subaru Impreza were stopped at a police vehicular checkpoint set up along Ardmore Park.

When the police asked to inspect the car boot, the 34-year-old driver suddenly accelerated the vehicle towards Anderson Road.

Despite warnings to stop, the driver continued to crash through police barricades, endangering the lives of the officers, the police said.

“Police opened fire at the vehicle to stop further danger. The vehicle subsequently stopped at the junction of Orange Grove Road and Anderson Road,” said the police statement.

A bag containing white powdery substances believed to contain controlled drugs was recovered in the car.

Substances believed to be controlled drugs and an item believed to be a drug-taking utensil were found on the men arrested.

The three men were wanted by the authorities for various offences, said the police. The 31-year-old passenger was injured during the incident and was taken to the hospital conscious.

Police and officers from SAF’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Explosives Defence Group have searched the car. No explosives, arms or weapons were found in the vehicle.

No weapons were found on the men. Preliminary investigations indicate that this is an isolated incident, said the police.

Security measures, including vehicle and person check points, have been put in place in the vicinity of the Shangri-La Hotel because of the Shangri-La Dialogue. The three-day security summit, which closes later on Sunday, was attended by defence chiefs from 26 nations, security analysts, academics and media from around the world.

Orange Grove Road, Anderson Road and Ardmore Park were temporarily closed following the incident, but all three roads were reopened to traffic by 11:10am.

At about 9am on Sunday, the entrance to Anderson Road from Stevens Road was cordoned off.

Residents who wanted to return to their apartments in the area had to be escorted by police officers. The entrance to Anderson Road was reopened at about 11am.

Police armoured vehicles and Special Operations Command vehicles were seen leaving the scene at about 9:27am.

The national police chief has ordered the police force to be vigilant over possible attempts to cause unrest or disturbances following the foreign ministry’s revocation of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s passports.

Police General Somyot Poompanmuang issued his order, marked “urgent” and dated on Friday, to police units all over the country, including the Metropolitan Police Bureau, all nine provincial police divisions, and the Border Patrol Police.

“After the revocation of a former political office holder’s passports, some people with ill intentions may attempt to cause chaos in the country. All the [police] units should closely monitor suspected groups. There should also be increased security at locations that could be possible targets of attack, such as houses of VIPs,” the order said.

The police chief also ordered checkpoints to be set up in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces as a deterrent measure.

However, PM’s Office Minister Suwaphan Tanyuvardhana said that no suspicious movement had been detected following the foreign ministry move, but the security agencies were closely monitoring the situation.

“There have been only movements on social media. I believe the government will be able to control the situation,” he said.

Royal Thai Police spokesman Lt-General Prawut Thawornsiri said that Somyot’s order was intended to maintain law and order.

Meanwhile, the police chief has sent back a recommendation by a police committee suggesting that Thaksin be stripped of his police lieutenant colonel rank because it was not signed by the panel’s members, according to a police source.

The recommendation by the panel, headed by senior adviser General Chaiya Siri-ampankul, needs to have the signatures of its members before further action could be taken.

The panel had earlier suggested that the national police chief remove Thaksin’s police rank because he had been sentenced to jail in 2008.

Thaksin’s passports were revoked after he made comments deemed damaging to the country.

In a related development, Army chief General Udomdej Sitabutr said that Thaksin had accused the government of undermining the reconciliation efforts but had failed to understand that it was he who was harming reconciliation efforts.

Former Democrat MP Nipit Intaraso-mbat said that Thaksin’s latest speech in South Korea last week demonstrated that he was not interested in reconciliation and had ruined any chance of achieving the goal in the future.

He singled out the part of Thaksin’s speech in which he accused the Privy Council of involvement in past military coups as the key reason his passports were revoked and he may possibly lose his police rank.

“If he hadn’t made that kind of speech, he would not have lost his passport. This will also make it almost impossible for the reconciliation process led by Anek Laothamatas [the reconciliation panel chairman and a National Reform Council member] to be achieved,” said the former Democrat MP.

Following Thaksin’s speech in South Korea, there is a move to strip him of his police rank.

Nipit said that Somyot had no choice but to do that because he was facing pressure from various organisations, including the government, which had absolute power.

Meanwhile, former Democrat MP Watchara Phetthong said the move to strip Thaksin’s police rank was not politically motivated, but was merely a legal process.

He said the move should have been done long ago, but was put on hold due to Thaksin’s influence on key organisations such as the Department of Special Investigation and the police.

National Anti-Corruption Commission member Wicha Mahakhun said the graft watchdog was considering filing a case calling for the impeachment of then foreign minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul and then premier Yingluck Shinawatra for their alleged role in issuing the diplomatic passport to Thaksin during the Yingluck administration.

“I would like to confirm that this investigation doesn’t particularly take aim at one political group. We are just doing our job by completing the investigation,” said Wicha.

At least 17 people, including children and members of the elite Philippine National Police Special Action Force, were wounded in two separate explosions that hit the Sulu provincial police compound in Jolo town, officials said on Saturday.

Col. Allan Arrojado, commander of the Joint Task Group Sulu, said the first blast that injured several civilians took place around 7:30 pm on Thursday just outside a mosque inside Camp Kasim in Barangay Asturias and was caused by a grenade lobbed by a still unidentified man.

Arrojado said that a few minutes later, another explosion occurred near the site of the first blast, wounding several policemen, including an officer. The more powerful blast came from a homemade bomb.

The second blast was intended to target police who rushed to the scene, local authorities said.

“It seems the (first) explosion was set up to draw responders as the target,” provincial police chief Senior Superintendent Abraham Orbita told reporters.

Orbita said his team is trying to establish the identity of the perpetrators and the motives behind the bomb attacks.

He said all the victims suffered shrapnel injuries and were brought to two hospitals.

Interior secretary Mar Roxas yesterday ordered the PNP to conduct a thorough investigation into the twin explosions, saying “the perpetrators will be persecuted to the fullest extent of law.”

“Our priority is to provide immediate medical treatment to those who were injured in the explosions,” Roxas said in a statement.

Rosalyn Aya-ay, a shopkeeper and policeman’s wife, said she found her husband sprawled on the ground after the first explosion and took him to the camp hospital, although he was not seriously injured.

“When I returned, I found my two daughters wounded by the second blast. I was scared and I had a hard time finding an ambulance to carry them,” she told AFP.

It was the second bomb attack on Camp Kasim since 2010, when a Christmas Day blast wounded six people worshipping at a Catholic church in another section of the facility.

Police investigators combed through the scene of the blast on Saturday, which was about 10 meters (ȁ feet) from a guarded entry gate, but would not say how the attackers had smuggled the explosives into the camp, according to an AFP photographer on the scene.

The families of policemen assigned to the camp also live inside the facility.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast, but police suspect the Abu Sayyaf, a small group of a few hundred Islamic militants founded in the 1990s with seed money from al-Qaeda.

Police last week killed a suspected Abu Sayyaf member allegedly involved in kidnappings in the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah, close to Sulu.

The group is still holding a Dutch birdwatcher who was seized three years ago.

Indonesia President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has reiterated his support for Youth and Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi in his handling of the crisis in national football that has set the government at loggerheads with the Football Association of

Indonesia(PSSI).

He pointed out the urgent need for reform of national football by the government, even if it did result in an international ban by the world footballgoverning body Fifa. Fifa views the sports ministry�s decree suspending the PSSI as government interference in soccer affairs.

“It doesn’t matter if we are absent from international competitions for a while as long as we can win big in the future,” he said in Manado, South Sulawesi, as quoted by Antara news agency.

He instructed Imam to ensure football competitions between regions go ahead as planned.

“In football reform, the essence is soccer education, which lays the foundation for a fair national football competition,” he said. “I’m confident when the reforms are made we will be moving forward.”

Jokowi�s stance appeared to contradict his deputy Jusuf Kalla, who has called for the revocation of the ministerial decree.

The suspension of the PSSI, which was due to its refusal to exclude two ‘legally flawed’ clubs from the Indonesian Super League (ISL), has brought domestic football competitions to a standstill.Â

Referring to a recent court ruling that upheld the PSSI’s legal challenge to the suspension and granted the association permission to resume its football activities, Kalla had urged the minister to lift the decree immediately bearing in mind the Fifa threat.�

Imam had seemed to be on the point of relenting before he came back insisting he was not worried about any sanctions.

His confidence about avoiding sanctions has been boosted by the ongoing developments in Fifa, several of whose senior officials were arrested by Swiss authorities on corruption charges prior to Friday’s congress in Zurich.

“How can they suspend [Indonesia], while Fifa has a problem itself? They should clear up their own scandal, only then they can talk about reform of federations,” Imam said in Yogyakarta as quoted by kompas.com.

“It is a fact that the main body is embroiled in corruption scandals. There should be detailed explanations. We’ll bow to them if they are clean,” he said.

The minister appeared to have ordered the transitional team, which was formed to replace the PSSI, but which was suspended following the issuance of the court ruling in favour of the PSSI, to resume its plans to stage a footballÂ

competition.

Called the Independence Cup, the competition will open for registration of participants on Monday.

“Amateur and professional clubs are invited. We are preparing the invitation letters,” Tommy Kurniawan, a member of the transitional team, said in Jakarta on Friday.

Although the competition is expected to kick off after the Muslim festivities of Eid, details of the competition format are not yet available.

“The competition format and the number of participants will be decided later. This tournament will not use state funds. That’s why we have to find sponsors,” he said.